Summary: Soundcheck's conversation about sports on stage continues as guest host Erin McKeown is joined by two of the people who have helped adapt these stories for the theater: Thomas Kail and D.J. Sparr. Kail directed two Broadway shows about sports: Lombardi, about Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, and Magic-Bird, about the special relationship between basketball stars Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. He was also nominated for a Tony for his work on In the Heights. Sparr composed the music for the new opera Approaching Ali, about one writer’s friendship with boxer Muhammad Ali. The production was recently staged at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. They discuss their firsthand experiences putting on shows about sports. Thomas Kail, on the similarities between sports and theater: I think there’s a reason why we all get obsessed with the Olympics. And it’s mostly because of those two minute packages they roll when we find out where they're from or what they did or what they overcame. And then we’re weeping and we’re cheering for a sport we’ve never heard of. What I’ve found also as someone who came from playing sports — I played soccer and baseball my whole life — is there was an understanding of community that I had that brought me to the theater. Directing and coaching had a lot in common. D.J. Sparr, on incorporating ideas from football coaching into his composing: I listen to many interviews of football coaches and how they manage their teams. In some ways, the composer is sort of like a coach in that you’re providing a playbook. There’s a pretty good parallel there. An offensive coordinator would give a playbook to his players. I give a musical score, and then that’s interpreted…. Since I love college football so much, anything I can do to relate that to my job as a composer is important. Kail, on why sports stories are so gripping to theatergoers: As a sports fan who watches every sports movie that comes out and tries to see as much theater that’s related to sports, I know what can pull you out of a story…. [Lombardi] was about the pursuit of excellence and the cost of excellence. That was fundamentally a play about a relationship set in the world of football, told with authenticity. I think that’s where people found their way in, whether they’ve seen a game or not.
